The Celebrity Therapist

Stress is a six letter word that is probably one of the most damaging words in the English language when it comes to recovery from an addition. This is true for the “hard” addictions like alcohol and drugs as well as for addictions like shopping, love, internet use and pornography. However, as I discuss in the book “The Law of Sobriety” stress is not something that you can eliminate completely from your life.

If you can’t eliminate stress then you have to have a way to deal with it. This way has to be easier and more automatic than turning back to the addiction. In addition you need to choose an alternate or replacement activity that is not an addictive behavior in itself. Unfortunately, that is what many people do. For example, a person that is recovering from an alcohol addiction may find that when they are stressed they smoke more, eat more or go online and play poker. This is not a healthy way to deal with stress since you are really just substituting one problem behavior for another.

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Having a plan to come up with stress is the best option. This plan needs to include three basic components. These components include:

1, Who – who can you talk to when you being to feel stressed that can help you to avoid turning to the addictive behavior. This could be a sponsor, coach, friend or family member but it has to be someone that is sober, supportive and available.

2. What – what is the replacement behavior that you are going to use. This behavior needs to be healthy, effective and easy to do regardless of where you may be. Deep breathing is a good stress relief option no matter where you may be. Swimming 50 laps is much less practical.

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3. How – how does the replacement or alternate behavior make you feel? Does it reduce your stress and your cravings for the addictive behavior or substance? Not all stress reduction works for everyone so you need to customize your plan to meet your needs, not what someone else tells you will work.

An addiction recovery counselor, therapist or life coach can be helpful in developing a stress reduction plan. If you recognize that stress will occur in your life and map out a way to cope that is effective and successful your chances of falling back into the addictive behavior will be dramatically reduced.

Sherry Gaba, LCSW, a psychotherapist and life, love, and recovery coach, is featured on Celebrity Rehab on VH1. Sherry is the author of The Law of Sobriety, which uses the Law of Attraction to help people recover from addiction. Get your free meditation audio MP3 How to Attract Positive Energy and to learn more about Wake Up Recovery at wakeuprecovery.com. She is also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tough Times, Tough People and Conscious Entrepreneurs, and to several e-books: Empowerment Manual: Finding Purpose With Intention, Filling the Empty Heart: 5 Keys to Transforming Love Addiction. The e-books Relapse Prevention and Eliminate Limiting Beliefs can be downloaded free of charge at www.sherrygaba.com. Contact Sherry for webinars, teleseminars, coaching packages, and speaking engagements.

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I have a client who’s a shy but talented girl. She loves music, and decided to join the band in her high school. She learned how to play the xylophone, and really enjoys herself when she plays at band practice. But when I saw her, she had a concert coming up and she was so nervous that she was thinking of dropping out of the band.

I asked her what she was so afraid of and she said, “I’m afraid I’ll make mistake while I’m playing.” That’s a fear we all have, isn’t it? We’re afraid we’ll make a mistake—especially when others are watching. Fear of making a mistake can keep us from even starting something new. Our fear ends up defeating us before we even begin.

But my client loves to play music, and I didn’t want her fear to push her into giving it up. So I asked her a simple question: “If you do make a mistake, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

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She thought about this for a moment, and said her fellow band members or someone in the audience might notice and say something to her about it. “And if they did, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” I pressed her.

“I’d be embarrassed,” she said.

“And if you were embarrassed, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

This time, she shrugged. “I’d be embarrassed.” It didn’t sound so scary when she said it this time. “Nobody would yell at you or hit you, people in the audience wouldn’t throw things at you, you wouldn’t be kicked out of band?”

“No,” she admitted. Okay, we all sometimes think we’d die of embarrassment, but that’s just something people say; nobody actually dies of embarrassment. We just feel it and then move on. My client realized it certainly wasn’t worth giving up something she loves just to avoid feeling embarrassed for a moment.

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How many times do we let fear hold us back from trying something new? When we’re afraid, we create giant monsters in our mind—terrible consequences if we fail. But when we stop to really examine these monsters, we see that they’re just annoying little mosquitoes we can swat with ease. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” By asking yourself this simple question, you can break the hold fear has over you and free yourself from the inaction it causes.

“I want to try sushi, but I’m afraid I won’t like it.” If you don’t like it, what’s the worst thing that could happen? You’d have to order something else and pay for both dishes, so you’d be out a few dollars.

“I want to apply for that job, but I’m afraid I’m not qualified.” If you apply and the hiring company decides you aren’t qualified, what’s the worst thing that could happen? You won’t get the job. But you don’t have the job now, so you’d be no worse off than you were before.

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“I want to ask that woman for a date, but I’m afraid she’d say no.” If you ask her and she says no, what’s the worst thing that could happen? She might tell her friends you asked her out and she turned you down. You might be embarrassed by that. And if you were embarrassed, what’s the worst thing that could happen? You’d be embarrassed and her friends would know you asked her out. What’s the worst thing that could happen as a result? Not much.

The best way to break through your fear is to examine it coolly and ask yourself if it’s based in reality. When you do that, what’s the worst thing that could happen?

Four years ago when my book, “The Law of Sobriety: Attracting Positive Energy for a Powerful Recovery” came out I knew there had to be ways to get my message out besides the book so I did speaking engagements, tele-conferences, workshops, television and radio interviews; but something was still missing. I knew there was more to these concepts then what I shared four years ago. I knew this because I began to study on my own these concepts in depth and what I learned was nothing short of amazing.

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So what did I learn on this journey about the law of attraction or why purpose in the lives of my clients and my life was so vital to feeling alive? What I learned first and foremost was I was asleep. That’s right. After a painful divorce from an alcoholic, I realized I lost track of who was I was and what I truly desired. I was un-conscious and living a life on auto-pilot. I was so focused for so many years on saving my husband, I lost me. I had to do some real digging to get myself out of this hole so I could wake up from this sleepy state; and that is when I began to study what the laws of the universe really meant. I was willing to do whatever it took to bring joy back into my life. I signed up for classes, tele-summits, courses, and coaching programs with some of the greatest masters of our time such as Bob Proctor and Mary Morrissey. This experience really resonated with the saying, “When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears.” Everything was unfolding perfectly……People, places, and things were showing up in miraculous ways.

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One of the things I learned was we are all so much more than what we see in front of us. That’s right. There are invisible laws that are working in our lives that perhaps you can’t touch, see, or hear but they are there. When you feel loss, let down, or not where you think you should be in your life, the Universe does have your back. I know this because once I became conscious again, let go of the pain from the past, and put myself in the mindset of action, amazing things began to happen in my life and that is when Wake Up Recovery was born. After deepening the dive into learning what all this meant, an invisible power came over me and through me (I like to call it infinite energy) which allowed me to wrote this program; and this is what I want to share with you.

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Next week please join me for my free preview call, “Out of the Box Recovery”. I would be so honored to have you join me on this journey.

You will discover why there are so many alternative ways to reach the same goals in your life, your client’s lives, and your recovery process, whether it is from substance abuse, food addictions co-dependency, love addiction, or any other behavior that is keeping you from living fully and awake.

You will learn powerful and practical tools you can incorporate into your life right away or use with your clients immediately.

You will learn processes for a new approach to expand into a new generation looking for purpose that you can use in your life today or to serve your clients more deeply.

I look forward to taking you on this transformational journey of aliveness, wakefulness, purposefulness, and creating your greatest dreams as I have….

Sherry Gaba, LCSW, is a Licensed Psychotherapist and Certified Transformational and Recovery Coach. She is the author of “The Law of the Sobriety: Attracting Positive Energy for a Powerful Recovery” and the creator of wake up recovery. She is the go to expert on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew Pinsky and media expert on CNN, HLN, Showbiz Tonight, The Bio Channel, Inside Edition, and E!News. Go to www.wakeuprecovery.com and get your free audio mediation download and/or sign up here for her free preview Out of the Box Recovery call. http://www.wakeuprecovery.com/outside-the-box-recovery-call/

While Rob Kardashian is certainly not the household name of his two sisters Kim and Khloe, he is also not an unknown to those that watch the family reality show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”.

It wasn’t too long ago that Rob Kardashian was dealing with a very public announcement of an eating disorder, at least by his family. He was very public about his issues with the way that the family talked about his weight gain and, in fact, did not attend Kim Kardashian’s marriage to Kanye West because of comments that were said. In turn, both of his sisters were very public about his consumption of junk food, but the sisters used some questionable pressure tactics and some terrible blame to try to get their brother to change.

While it seems that his weight issue is now under control, another addiction, or perhaps a previously concealed addiction has come to light. He has been accused by the family, and some unnamed friends, of using a variety of prescription medications as well as cough syrup and prescription medication combinations and using marijuana.

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The fact is that addiction is addiction and it cannot be treated as you would treat a bad habit or poor behavior. While there is no confirmed addiction with Rob, it is obvious that taunting, teasing and bullying their brother has not helped the situation and, in fact, may have actually created more of a feeling of isolation and separation from the support system that he may so desperately need.

Learning to understand the root of addiction, including food addiction or alcohol and drug addiction, is the first step in actually being able to help somebody. It seems that people on television, especially when their lives are so public, would have the ability to seek professional counseling rather than turning to negativity and blame as incredibly destructive way to try to attempt to provide help.

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Sherry Gaba, LCSW, a psychotherapist and life, love, and recovery coach, is featured on Celebrity Rehab on VH1. Sherry is the author of The Law of Sobriety, which uses the Law of Attraction to help people recover from addiction. She offers a 10 week Certification for Psychotherapists, Coaches or for anyone wanting to deepening their understanding of using the law of attraction to recovery from any addiction at wakeuprecovery.com. She is also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tough Times, Tough People and Conscious Entrepreneurs, and to several e-books: Empowerment Manual: Finding Purpose With Intention, Filling the Empty Heart: 5 Keys to Transforming Love Addiction. The e-books Relapse Prevention and Eliminate Limiting Beliefs can be downloaded free of charge at www.sherrygaba.com. Contact Sherry for webinars, teleseminars, coaching packages, and speaking engagements.

Controlling Stress In Addiction RecoveryStress is a six letter word that is probably one of the most damaging words in the English language when it comes to recovery from an addition. This is true for the "hard" addictions like alcohol and drugs as well as for addictions like shopping, love, internet use and pornography. However, as I dis

Walking Through Fear: What’s the Worst Thing That Could Happen?Sherry Gaba, LCSW, a psychotherapist and life, love, and recovery coach, is featured on Celebrity Rehab on VH1. Sherry is the author of The Law of Sobriety, which uses the Law of Attraction to help people recover from addiction. Get your free meditation audio MP3 How to Attract Positive Energy

Why I Created Wake Up RecoveryFour years ago when my book, "The Law of Sobriety: Attracting Positive Energy for a Powerful Recovery" came out I knew there had to be ways to get my message out besides the book so I did speaking engagements, tele-conferences, workshops, television and radio interviews; but something was still miss

When One Addiction Replaces Another: The Rob Kardashian StoryWhile Rob Kardashian is certainly not the household name of his two sisters Kim and Khloe, he is also not an unknown to those that watch the family reality show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”.
It wasn’t too long ago that Rob Kardashian was dealing with a very public announcement of an ea

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